Eastern polls to be challenged

Fears of an escalation of violence following the Government’s abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement are setting a serious poser to the conduct of local government elections in the East possibly in March, this year. The Tamil National Alliance, which opposes the holding of such polls there, said it would file action as soon as possible to challenge the decision saying “no free and fair elections can be held with armed Pillayan faction terrorizing the district”.

TNA Jaffna District parliamentarian N. Srikantha said yesterday that all this while they could not challenge it in courts as the nominations had not been gazetted, but now they could file action as early as next week. Nomination notices for these polls have been put up in the nine local authorities divisions in the Batticaloa district on Friday. They state that nominations would be accepted from January 18 to 25.

The local polls are the first of elections the Government wants to conduct in the East. This is after the re-capture of the East by the Security Forces and Police in July last year.

Four pro-Government Tamil political parties have banded together in a common front to contest these elections. They are the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP – Pillayan faction), the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).

However, the opposition UNP and the TNA, both having a substantial following in the Eastern Province, are worried. UNP sources say that with the end of the CFA, they fear that the Pillayan faction will step up attacks particularly on their rivals, both the LTTE and the Karuna faction.

The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), an independent election monitoring group, said it would meet Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake on January 25 to discuss matters relating to the proposed local polls. A spokesman said his group hoped to deploy 600 volunteers and 20 foreign observers to monitor the polls. He said he was, however, sceptical of the entire process if armed groups resort to violence during the campaign.